Sunday 18th February 2007

Well here goes.

Bram was away on a club match at Birkin (?), which I was reliably informed, he won with about 70lb (ish), with no one to travel with, I ended up travelling all by myself. Well at least I can listen to Margaret Thatcher’s Greatest Speeches in peace.

Looking at the list of names down for the match, I was hopeful that it would have been a 50 pegger, but by the time of the draw there were 43 anglers in attendance.

I pegged it 2 pegs, miss a peg, all the way around the lake, then I took some of the worst pegs out, with the intention of trying to make some of the not so good pegs better, but still giving everyone at least one side of there peg as an empty peg, but you can’t win them all, as people still complained.

Nightie, Chappy, Fullstop and Rumpole were all in attendance.

Floatman quickly accosted me for the money for the floats that I borrowed yesterday. Well, when I say that he accosted me, he only paid £3.00 for his match. He can have them back when I have finished with them. Besides, he said that I could pay for them when I have tried them, well I haven’t even tried any of them yet. I want a full refund. I wonder if he does 30-day payment terms?

Whilst in the draw queue, Pete ‘Woody’ Baron (he informed a few of the lads in the pub that he had to get off early as it was ‘Line Dancing’ night and he was gonna take his missus) commented on Mick Grant’s new teeth by shouting ‘Steptoe’s Horse, keep the noise down’. You could have heard a pin drop, before we all started laughing.

I put my hand in the bag first – as always (question to all you other match organisers, do you go in first or settle for second best?) and managed to snare peg 21. YUCK!!!! Wished that I had waited now! Peg 21 is on the outside of a bend, with the island going away at 90 degrees, leaving you with a little bit of the island to go at, but hey, that is how the pegging went. I even complained to myself.

Oh well, you can but try. Nightie drew Peg 2; Fullstop was on peg 30, Rumpole – peg 44 and Chappy on peg 69. I was gonna be 4 quid down at this rate.

Upon arriving at my peg, I found that I had former Fisho-Mania champion ‘Dave Pimlott’ on peg 23. I quickly turned round to him and said “I would have had a quid with you, but I remember the last time we had a peg to peg” and Mark ‘Giant One’ Calvert on peg 18. (Think about it with the pegging, pegs 17 & 18 in, peg 19 not in, peg 20 taken out, peg 21 in, peg 22 not in, peg 23 in and shake it all about).

Whilst getting my gear out of my car, John Illingworth enquired about which peg I was on. When I replied, ‘21’, his face said it all.

Following my debacle yesterday, do I fish with the hook in the loop or not.

Sod it, go on then.

I set up 5 rigs, 2 across, one for the top 2 + 2sections, one at the base of the island and one for down the deep water down the side.

In view of yesterdays efforts, I set up a similar process or rigs in terms of a normal rig and a hook in the loop rig across. A hook in the loop at the base of the island slope and a normal rig on both the top 2 + 2 rig and the deep water down the side rig.

The island rigs; I set up the hook in the loop rig to fish across on top of the shelf. This rig, as yesterday, incorporated a .2 Garbolino DC 6 float on .10 line direct to a size 18 Kamasan B911 eyed hook. I plumbed up and found that I had 2ft of water across. My other across rig was the same rig, but I fished a little deeper, just down the shelf at 2.5ft deep. I also plumbed up to the hay bale down the side with this rig until I found the same depth.

My top 2 + 2 rig was a 4 x 14 Drennan Roach float on .10 Preston Powerline straight through to a size 20 Preston PR 23 hook. I plumbed up and found that I had nearly 6ft on this rig. The deepest part of my peg. I set up this rig, as yesterday Chappy had approximately half of his weight (not his body weight stooopid), on his top kit alone.

I also set up a hook in the loop rig as above, for the base of the far slope at 14m going towards peg 20.

My final rig was set up to fish in the deeper water down the inside and incorporated a .3 DC 6. I set this rig up to fish in the standard way – if there is a standard way.

Before the all in Haircut (have you seen his number plate? – P ??? ERM, I kid you not!) told me that he was on peg 20 yesterday and had 31 carp for 31lb and he caught most of them going towards peg 21. All on pellet!

At the all in, I baited up with double maggot and put some micros in my fruit-shoot top and shipped out with the rig that I was planning on fishing just down the slope. I dropped the bait and the rig in and settled back. After about 10 minutes, I got my first indication. I waited a little longer (about 1 minute), nothing. I lifted the rig and dropped it back in. The float had only just settled, when it buried. Fish No1 was in the net. An F1 about 1lb. I repeated the process and caught 6 fish over the next 40 minutes or so.

I then decided to try to spread my feed and also changed my feed by feeding 4mm pellets, whilst fishing pellet on the hook. After some 10 minutes, the float buried and a little F1 was again with its brethren in the net. My first fish of the day on pellet. What I did find was that if I fed the 4mm pellets, I waited that bit longer for a bite.

After about 1-¼ hours, I went over to the far side with the hook in the loop rig, baited with pellet and micro pellets in the fruit-shoot top. I dropped the rig in and got an indication straight away. After a couple of missed bites/liners, I got used to the bites/indications and plundered my peg for the next couple of hours or so.

Pimmy by now was panicking and saw nearly every fish that I caught. Exman’s head had also developed a ball joint and was also looking my way with every fish netted.

Wind Up Time.

Halfway through the match Chappy rang me to find out how I was getting on. I told him that it was really hard and I was struggling for bites. I said that I had about 6 fish. I told him that Pimmy had about 8 fish and Exman was bagging and had about 20 fish. Chappy informed me that he also had about 6 fish, but one of them was a decent fish.

With about 1 hour of the match remaining, the peg was starting to die on me and I had to go to 16m towards peg 20 to try to keep bites coming. I had tried on the top 2 + 2 rig on 3 occasions and never had an indication. I also tried down the side on the shallow rig and never had an indication. At this time of the year, I think that the matches are so tight, that you have to plunder the shoals whilst you can. Everyone else has to then play catch up.

With about 30 minutes of the match remaining Chappy rang me again. In answer to his question of how was it going, I doubled my earlier quotation for Pimmy, Exman and I.

That was it. All out.

I would estimate that I had about 30lb (ish) made up of 44 fish. By the time that the scales had arrive, Gandhi was winning it with 51-12. Shrek Middleton weighed in 49lb (38 fish) and Ron Jeremy weighed in 38lb.

Pimmy got absolutely fish caked. Exman plonked 51lb on the scales for 2nd overall and I put 35lb 13oz on the scales for 6th overall. Pimmy managed to scrape together a respectable 30lb. The Giant One ended up with 26lb, but that was only after he got of his box to have a pee in peg 20, saw what I was up to, then went back and started to fish pellet.

New rule – No walking on matches, and no eye spying on those catching around you.

Apparently, I got 4 Chappy Slaps for winding Chappy up. I must admit, I hadn’t felt the last 3, as I was still numb from the first one.

My thoughts on the ‘hook in the loop’? Well, rightly or wrongly I managed to snare nearly 36lb by using a light line (.10) and a smaller hook (size 18) than yesterday. I foul-hooked 3 fish all day and managed to get 2 of them out, one was hooked under the mouth, the other was hooked just outside the side of the mouth. The general consensus seems to be that you have to use a thicker line, would I have caught more fish? Or have I proved (if that was the case) that you can also catch fish on lighter gear as most of the comments seem to be along the lines of people don’t like the idea because you have to use heavier lines. Who knows? I will however be continuing my own trials and tribulations.

Also, if I had started off my second line earlier, would I have continued to catch for longer or would there have been more chance of splitting the fish into two shoals. Who knows? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.